She Left Me Too
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Trillian left her own daughter, Random, because Random could never give her what she really wanted. Trillian left Zaphod, because he could not give her what she really wanted. And when she drops Random off with Zaphod, he gets to see what should really b


She Left Me Too

The little girl named Random rushed right in as he opened the door. She didn't look at him, or glance around the house, she simply went straight forward, not even caring where she would end up.

"Uh…" One of Zaphod's head watched the little girl and the other looked over at Trillian.

"Thank you, Zaphod, she hates the time daycares, and she's just been so moody lately. It's good for her to see someone familiar." Trillian said looking up at the one head.

"Hey." The two heads watched Random, and one turned back to Trillian. "Yeah, no – no problem. I mean…I haven't had a lot of…er…time with her, you know?"

Trillian nodded.

"Yes, well I have to go now. I'll be back in a few days, as soon as I can. You can watch me on the networks." Trillian said.

She took a step down from the porch, smiling a fake and empty smile at Zaphod. A smile that promised she really was going to be back in only a few days, and that everything was fine, she and Random had the greatest of all mother daughter relationships. As if she and Zaphod were still together, still in love, as if she hadn't really not returned any of his calls for the last three years or answered any questions on this Random. As if her life was just as she wanted it, as if she really did fit into it all.

"Yeah, yeah, er…Trillian?" Zaphod's third arm scratched the back of his right head.

"Yes?"

"…Nothing."

And Trillian smiled her empty and fake television smile, the one she had trained herself to do, and turned back to her little spaceship, fumbling with the keys to start it. Zaphod frowned as he watched her leave, clumsily stepping back and hitting his left head on the door.

He frowned as he peeked out the windows watching what used to be his Trillian leave his planet.

It was not really a planet. He called it that though, "Z.B." he loved to call it. It was really a moon he had bought with all the fame and fortune he got from all those Talk shows he appeared on after the whole saving the galaxy and stuff thing from Krikkit, and stuff. It was a small moon, but it was his, with the Heart of Gold, still in the driveway to the right of the house. It had fields of grass and stuff, and even a little river that went all around the moon. It had a giant satellite giving power and TV to his moon. It had long since stopped orbiting its home planet when another planet moved closer to the moon. The moon was soon caught in the two orbits and just stood still. So now he lived on the side of the moon with daylight, and the other side of night. He sometimes went there, the night side, he used to go there with Trillian, it was sort of romantic. People just sort of…stopped following him, let him have the damn ship, they said, forget it, forget him. Whatever, Zaphod thought then, I get the ship! He got a nice big house on the moon, complete with all sorts of little things and shiny buttons that he really didn't know what they did or why. But hey, they looked really cool.

He lived on that moon with Trillian before, but she left. She left as soon as she wanted a kid. She left just like that.

It wasn't his fault he couldn't give her a kid. It wasn't, what could he say?

"Random?"

But she wouldn't even come back when she did have a kid.

"Random!" The two heads called.

He followed the path he had watched her go down. Down his hallway with ancient paintings describing the Big Bang and the wars of the primal Universe. He didn't really get them, but he did like the colors. Two heads looking in two different directions for a singly kid, one head guessed right, and the other wanted left. Right one, it had an extra arm to go that way.

His home was quite large and colored with the boldest shades of yellow and orange. It was sort of his thing, you know? It wasn't really decorated, Trillian usually did that. But there were nice little buttons that were toys, a built in computer system that sorted everything so he didn't have to, just the way he liked it. The floor was carpeted in a material very shaggy that felt good on his bare feet and back. Video games were scattered around, the computer hadn't really cleaned up yet. There weren't many books, and the ones that did cover the shelves were Trillian's.

There she was. Little Random, lying face down on the floor.

"Hey." He said quietly.

She mumbled something that might have been a reply, or maybe something else.

He frowned.

He didn't know why Trillian never came back after she had Random, he assumed she would, he always thought she would. She said she had a job now, she said she couldn't come back this week, or this month, she was a new mother with a job. Then she just stopped talking with him. He wanted to see Random. He told Trillian that, he wanted to see the little baby girl.

Wasn't it his anyway?

He didn't know what happened, just before Random was born, just before Trillian left. It all seemed blurry now, everything was fine one day. He lived with his awesome girlfriend on their own moon with their own Heart Of Gold, where so many adventures they had shared took place. He was Zaphod Beeblebrox, the biggest bang since the big one, and she was Trillian, his love. Then the next thing, she wanted a baby, and she left, and she never did come back.

What was wrong? Why didn't she stay…with him?

"Hey kiddo." Zaphod tried again.

And again Random mumbled something on the floor. He frowned, and leaned on the wall. He couldn't really see the kid, her face covered by her hair, and facing the floor. So that was her, Random. He had seen her, twice before this. When she was around two, and around then again around seven. He couldn't really be sure, not even she could be sure, these whole time daycares and traveling through time with Trillian. But those visits happened a long time ago.

He doesn't know why Trillian doesn't visit more. She just left and never came back. They were happy, he thought. Together, traveling the stars, finally settling down and getting a house on a moon. Together life as a big party. Wasn't that what she wanted?

She should visit more; he wants to see Random more. It didn't matter, he saw her as his. Trillian was his girlfriend, why wasn't Random his daughter?

"Come on, get up. Let's go do something." Zaphod tried.

She mumbled something slightly louder than before.

The left head nudge the right head and looked at it. And for a moment Zaphod stared at himself. He remembered doing this often when he first got the second head, just spend a few minutes, heads looking at each other, and he thought, "This is what women see." And then one head would close his eyes and the other would watch, and he would think, "This is what women see when they wake up to me." And then, "God I'm sexy." Yup, he remembered Trillian saying that too.

The right head nudged towards Random, and the rest of the body went with it. He went slowly and cautiously, he didn't really know what to do, what he was doing. How could he? Trillian never gave him a chance to be a father.

Still he tried, sitting next to the girl who still laid face flat on the floor. She didn't move even as he crossed his legs and rested his heads on his arms and sighed.

"Hey." He said, poking her with a third arm. "Come on."

Poke, poke, poke.

"Get up."

"She left didn't she?" Random Dent asked.

"Yeah…" Zaphod nodded.

"I didn't think she had it in her. I thought this time she would've stay."

Random slowly raised her head to look up at Zaphod and his two heads, deciding which one to look at.

"I thought you would've made her stay." Random stared.

She stared at him, switching from head to head, glaring at him. But he knew that glare; he had done it many times himself. That glare, "how could you?" glare, the "I'm going to guilt you into something I want" glare. Yeah, he nearly invented that.

He shook his head.

"Nope." He said.

She returned her face to the floor.

He stared at the little girl, she seemed so sad. Sad like Trillian was sometimes, staring up at the planets they orbited on this Z.B. moon. But he was never good at this whole thing, never good with sad people, never good at being sad. Sometimes he wondered if he zapped sadness out of his brain while he was erasing some other stuff to be President. He was never sad, not really anyway. Not happy sometimes, but not sad. And he had such a hard time making people that were sad, happy.

He had such a hard time at seeing a lot of things.

"She always leaves." She mumbled.

"Yeah, I know." Zaphod nodded.

"She misses Earth."

"Yeah."

Random turned her back to Zaphod, and curled up into a ball.

"Go away." She said.

"You're in my house." He raised his heads.

"Go away. You wouldn't understand." She said.

"Hey come on, kiddo. Stop being so gloomy…"

He reached over to lay his hand on her shoulder, but she stopped him, and scooted away.

"Stop it. You're not my dad. My dad is an Englishman named Arthur Dent. He likes tea. He is somewhere in this stupid galaxy." She said. "You're not my dad."

Because Trillian didn't want him to be. Because Trillian didn't trust him enough to allow him to be. Because she hated him, because he could never give her what she really wanted. But neither could Random.

"I don't have a dad…not really anyway." Random whispered.

No, you don't. Because your mother didn't think I could do it.

"I knew Arthur." He said. "I could tell you about him…"

She said nothing, just curled up into her little ball. He nudged her again, leaning towards her.

"Come on, kiddo. I haven't seen you in so long. Please be happy? Pleeeeeeaaase?" Zaphod pouted trying to play.

"I don't even remember the last time I visited. I only know you from mum's stories." Random said.

"Well now you can get to know me. I'm really a nice guy you know."

"Mum says you're stupid."

"She does…?"

"Yeah."

Trillian said that?

"But mum gets like that sometimes." Random said.

"Come on. I have a whole moon for ya. If your mom's told you about me, then you must know of my incredibly small attention span. I'm bored kiddo, let's go do something." He poked her in the back.

"I don't want to."

Zaphod continued poking her gently and with persistence. Random Dent, daughter of Tricia McMillan and Arthur Dent. She went to a DNA bank after she left, she came back a few months later pregnant. She left again, had the baby, and never really came back. He didn't understand, he probably missed something. Yeah, if he knew himself he knew he had to have had missed something. Missed something important and big.

He missed the moment where Trillian didn't want to be Trillian anymore, but Tricia. Yeah, he missed it. And she just couldn't stand being his anymore, not Zaphod Beeblebrox's girl that he partied with everywhere they went. She just didn't want to be that anymore. She wanted something else, something he could never give her, or at least that is what she thought. He could have been Random's dad; he could have been a great dad. A fun dad, and when she would leave for her work, at least Random would have him in all those times she was dumped and ditched in those time daycares, he could have played with her then. They could have traveled in the Heart of Gold, doing whatever she wanted to do. Maybe then Random would be happy right now, and ask her dad, ask him to play video games, something rad like that.

But Trillian stopped being Trillian, stopped loving him, stopped seeing him, stopped trusting him.

"Random, please. You know what went on with me and your mom. Come on, I just wanna get to know ya." Zaphod peered over to her.

She curled up tighter into a ball.

"You went to Earth, that's where you got my mom." She said.

"That's right."

"What was it like?"

"What?"

"Earth."

"Oh…um…"

Earth, well for one it was stupid and small, primitive and full of monkeys. It was very blue, and loud, and dirty. But they had wild alcohol and sweet parties where people could dress up, and he put a bird cage over one of his two heads and said there's a parrot in there, and the second head would say something. Earth had cars; they were cool, little toy robots that weren't depressed. He got some boots from Earth. Earth was…mostly harmless.

"It was…er…" He tried to think.

But he wasn't good at thinking, and he couldn't really remember Earth.

"You don't remember." Random said.

"I'm sorry, I have horrible memory when it comes to species."

"You don't remember mum's home…"

Well mum didn't remember him.

"Get up, kiddo." He said.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Come on, I mean…"

"You wouldn't understand! You're stupid! You wouldn't understand anything about anything! Stupid!" She yelled, and turned over to him pointing at him, and screaming.

Only Trillian yelled at him like that, when she said she would leave, when she said she was packing. He never thought she would really do it. She loved him. He loved her.

"You can't understand!"

After all he did for her too.

After all he gave up for her, she still didn't trust him. The life he had, the life of the truest of all freedoms, even when half of the galaxy's police were after you. That life where he was Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Biggest Bang since the Big One, the worst dressed sentient being in the galaxy, the party animal, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Zaphod Beeblebrox. Whose reputation stretched across from tip to tip of the galaxy. His heads were recognized, and women swooned for him. He could have had any of them, any of them at all, but he chose her. That life, where everything was fun, and everything came so easy. President? Did that. Save the Universe? Did that too. He said he would, and he did. When life was just a party, and he was so hip he could hardly see his pelvis.

That life. That life he gave up just to please her. He settled down for her. She didn't want to run across the galaxy in the Heart of Gold anymore, space had lost its hold on her, it was all the same, empty and vast. All planets the same in the end, all the planets not hers. As he laughed and danced at the parties they went to. One head getting drunk as hell and hitting on random chicks that weren't always women, and the other head staying sober just for her, looking at her and smiling at her, his third arm sometimes wrapped around the other head's mouth, just so she could talk. They stopped going to parties because she didn't like it. They stopped pressing that improbability button at random. No longer did they run stark naked through the Heart of Gold, laughing and laughing, getting drunk enough to talk to Eddie. They stopped having tickle fights, stopped laughing at one point. She wanted a home, he bought one. They settled there. And for her, he gave up the fun in his life. There he stayed with her, loyal to her. Zaphod Beeblebrox, staying indoors with her, always fully dressed. He would look up at the stars and they would call to him, each planet, each party, taunting him. Still he stayed with her.

He gave up that life, just for her. Because he thought back then they were each other's lives. He was never good at the whole love thing. Relationships before came and went. Somehow it always seemed to be his fault when someone dumped him. He was horrible at relationships in fact; never really caring about whomever he was dating at the time, never really understanding that he had to care. But Trillian loved him, even he as blind as he was with an ego, he still recognized that.

But then whenever he woke up in the morning she would be gone, leaving a mere little breakfast for him. She would go out for days and days, and he would wait for her, blindly waiting in that house she wanted for her to return. Bored out of his mind he made a game of hitting his two heads together. She stopped coming back all together soon. She told him about her new job as a reporter, using it as an excuse. Then she said she wanted a baby, and she never really did come back.

He gave up everything he ever wanted all for her. But she never wanted him. True, there was once a one-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, with a job that his family had passed down to him. A one-headed Zaphod that had a masterful plan that included being President and stealing that amazingly amazing ship. He killed that Zaphod, locking away all those things in his brain, and getting another head. But it was she who killed that Zaphod. He even began liking staying at his house. He even smiled at the thought of Trillian pregnant. He could've added being a dad to his long list of things he'd done.

After all he did for her, she didn't even come back to show him what was rightfully his daughter. After all he did for her, she still left. He still loved her, and she didn't care.

She left him.

And now she was doing it again. Leaving her own daughter. Leaving her own daughter just because being a mother didn't really cure her of what she really wanted, and she didn't even know what she wanted.

Zaphod placed his hands over Random's shoulders tightly, holding her down so she wouldn't scream or struggle. This was important.

"She left me too." Zaphod said.

And Random looked up at him, both abandoned by the woman that should love them. She began to cry, such a fragile mind already broken, much like his. He understood everything. He frowned at her. Perhaps this was sadness, well he didn't like it.

"She left me too." He said again.

Random sobbed, sitting up like Zaphod, and wiping her tears, sniffling.

"Come on, let's get the hell out of here." Zaphod said.

And for the next two weeks they randomly pressed the Improbability button in the Heart of Gold. Whenever landing somewhere familiar, Zaphod would tell her of a little adventure he had had there. And the two laughed, and he took her to little parties where children were allowed. He taught her about guys and how stupid they could be with women. He taught her about Ford and their time together as children her age. Press the button, stop, press the button, stop, this place is boring, press the button again! They laughed and laughed in those two weeks. And Zaphod knew that this is what it was like to be a dad, and it was really, really cool.

Random loved it, running through the Heart of Gold, like the child she was. Dressing in her dad's clothes, far too big for her, coats dragging on the floor, but it didn't matter. He would run after her, telling her to give it back, oh but she was but a child, and children hide so well. She found the Orange sash of the President of the Galaxy and he allowed her to wear it for a while, as they sat on the bridge, his two right arms wrapping around her shoulders. She would sit next to him, as they watched old horror movies of the galaxy, and other such things like that. She huddled close to him like she would her with her mother, if her mother was ever there. She would make fun of him, talk like him, and pretend she had two heads. And she would ask rather strange questions considering the heads and the arms.

"Well, uh…you sure you're old enough for this talk?" He would ask, and she would nod. "Well um…er…yeah, kiddo. Two heads, double the pleasure."

She giggled. He pointed to his right head.

"One to make out with." He pointed to his left head. "And the other to kiss the neck with. Your mom loved it!"

Random laughed, falling back on the couch. She rolled around in her father's orange sash. She would ask other questions, about his brains, and his great grand dad. She would point at something and ask what it was. She would point at his clothes and asked about them. Pointed at a ring once and asked where he got it. He said he forgot and he gave it to her. She asked so many questions, and he just had to answer them all.

It reminded him of Trillian, and when he first took her up into space.

This whole dad thing was cool, mainly of just hanging out.

But Trillian called them, and told them to come back, and loyally they did. Trillian grabbed the hand of Random and said thanks to Zaphod, and he simply nodded, secretly waving to Random with his third arm. Random saw and smiled, but it didn't really last long. She had sadness in her face again as they left, knowing that her mother would soon leave her again, somewhere else in space.

Trillian tugged at Random, walking towards their ship, saying something about meeting her real father.


End file.
